I'm going to be doing some home improvement projects in the same room my lovie usually is housed and I'd like to move her to my sun room. I live in New Hampshire though, so temps can get cold in the winter. I was just wondering how cold is too cold for a lovie?

A good rule of thumb is any kind of short sleeve weather is fine. Otherwise if slowly adapted to the temperature in the long term, most parrots can be alright in temps ranging from about 40F-100F. You want to avoid quick changes of more than 10F.

Actually, 40 degrees is too cold for a peachface. The average low temperature of their zone of origin in Africa is 57. I keep my canaries and finches in a small unheated mudroom but I use an electric space heater in it 24/7 and it keeps the whole room nice and toasty in the winter.

I keep my birds in a room with the heat set at 77 degrees. They have a humidifier so it feels like a sauna in there, but they are VERY happy! A few times this winter our electricity has gone out. This has not happened for years in our area. As I found out, when the power goes out, their heater thermostat--an oil filled portable, goes off and doesn't come back on when the power does. So I've looked into electric convection heaters with battery back-up. Found them for as low as $69.99. Anyone have a better way to deal with this problem?

They live in a large, enclosed back porch room that is surrounded on 3 sides by windows. When the heat goes out, on our coldest night, it took about an hour before the temp dropped 10 degrees. I'm in Seattle and we've had some cold weather lately--into the teens. (Of course that is when the heat first went out.) Thankfully, I awoke to the screams of some very verbal birds! Their discomfort alarmed me, and I just can't tolerate this happening again.

My preference is to keep the birds colder in winter. Not even just for saving energy but also to stimulate thicker down. When it's colder, the adapt to it and acclimatize. Their metabolism changes to stay warm and they molt in a ticker down. The reason I want this is because they are thus better equipped to go outside on cold days (going 65 to 40 is less a big deal than 77 to 40), slightly more likely to be able to survive outside in moderate cold if they were to get lost, and because in the event of a power issues (as mentioned), they are more likely to be able to handle lower temperatures. Something to think about.

I also keep the temperature in the birdroom lower during the winter. I don't do it for the thicker plumage because I never take my birds out in the cold weather but I do it to mark the difference between the breeding and the resting season.

All these tips are great, thank you they will come in handy when winter time comes around this season for us.But I would like your opinions on air conditioning. Is it okay to take your bird from a warm room to one that has had the air conditioning running. I'm not sure of the temperature of the a/c room and will most likely have to get a thermometer. Is it better to take the bird into the room then turn on the a/c?

I don't know about anyone else but I don't use air conditioners, mostly because I don't like them, but also because I know that the older models created ozone which is not good for birds. I don't know if the new ones still do this or not as I haven't used one in 40 years.

Interesting. I hope more folks answer this post as I surely do use mine and it is fairly new. Some days the humidity is to much for me and I want to still have Lady in the same room so I can watch her and try to understand her behaviors better.

Well, parrots actually need a much higher humidity than what we find comfortable and, at least mine don't seem to mind the heat much. I like to make a difference between the seasons as much as I can in order to keep their endocrine system working as it should and I use temperature as one of the tools for this (the main difference is the number of hours of light but I also use temperature and diet) so I keep the birdroom cooler in the winter and don't use A/C in the summer but I have two fans, one on the top part of a window sucking the hot air out and another one on the bottom part of another window blowing outside air in. This creates a draft and, added to the air purifier, keeps the temperature from rising too uncomfortable levels but it's still warmer in there than in the rest of the house.

Now, parrots are like people and are affected more by a drastic change in temperature more than constant exposure to a slightly lower or higher temperature than the ideal one so I would be careful about moving the bird from one room to another (maybe you can make a short stop along the way where the temperature is in-between?). The biggest problem with parrots and A/C is the dryness in the air which is not healthy for them but unless you keep them in a birdroom where all the conditions are bird and not human specific, there is little you can do (although maybe you can turn on a humidifier if it gets too dry -I keep one running in the birdroom 24/7 in the winter).